Afraid to Upgrade

E

EarPlug

Bit poster
After seeing all the post hear about upgrading to 4.0 I'm a little afraid to go through the process since I use XP to run my company accounting..

I have a simple question - If I do a Time Machine backup just prior to trying the upgrade AND, all goes bad, can I just go back to Time Machine and do a restore and be back to where I started?

Jack
 
Since I did the process countless times, I think I can give you an useful advice or two.

First, no matter if you upgrade or not, make a backup of the virtual machine under Parallels 3, I mean the 10-20 GB file. It's a manual backup, i.e. copy such file in a different folder or disk: Parallels 3 screwed up my VM so many times (with Windows not starting anymore) that this is the first very step to follow, no matter if you plan to upgrade to 4 or not.

Said this, after manually copying the VM to another location, install Parallels 4: if you're one of the lucky users without problem (as me, for instance), it's OK, otherwise just uninstall Parallels 4, delete the upgraded VM, install Parallels 3 and copy your previous VM to the right folder.

I'm suggesting a manual backup instead of Time Machine as it's much more straightforward and quick: Time Machine needs to be properly configured so that it just makes ONE copy of the VM, if you leave the folder in the Time Machine list it will make a backup every hour, since the file is constantly modified by Parallels.
 
I would add the following to the previous suggestion:

-make a backup copy of your Parallels Desktop 3 Virtual Machine (always a smart move before upgrading);

-launch your backup Virtual Machine. uninstall Parallels Tools version 3.0, all antivirus software and custom drivers (drivers that were not a part of Windows installation);

-uninstall Parallels desktop 3 per the instructions laid out in the following KB article:

http://kb.parallels.com/en/4790

-install Parallels Desktop 4 (please install the latest build, you can get it here: http://download.parallels.com/deskt...tfix1/Parallels-Desktop-4.0.3540.209168.dmg);

-create a custom new Virtual Machine, using your .hdd file as the hdd image file for the new one (start Parallels Desktop 4, select File => New Virtual Machine, click Skip Detection, select the corresponding VM type, select 'Custom', follow the steps of the wizard and, when prompted for Hard Disk options, select 'Existing image file', click 'Continue' and locate your .hdd image file).

This will make the upgrade process as smooth as possible.
 
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